


Your Ex-Lover Is Dead

by Hexiva



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post - X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), The Cure, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 13:16:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6080775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hexiva/pseuds/Hexiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After The Last Stand, Mystique seeks out Magneto in search of closure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Ex-Lover Is Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song of the same name by Stars.

She walks through the park, dressed in a casual t-shirt and jeans. Camouflage. Her appearance, now, won’t arouse any suspicions - she’s just a pale woman with black hair. But that doesn’t make her one of these people. She molded herself into a weapon years ago, and it’s too late to try to be human.

She spots her target immediately - an old man sitting alone at a park table, staring at a chess set. She approaches him slowly and steadily, but he doesn’t look up until she’s right next to him.

“Raven,” he says.

It’s been over thirty years, but to Raven’s eyes, he still looks the same as the day they met. Or the day, years later, that she fell in love with him.

His eyes barely have time to widen in shock before her fist hits him right in the face. She may not have her mutant strength anymore, but she’s still stronger and faster than he is. The old man is knocked off the bench, hitting the ground, his face bloodied. 

Raven stands over him, glaring down. She can hear a distant disturbance as the humans in the park twitter among themselves, but she ignores it.

“You lying, backstabbing traitor,” she hisses.

Erik sits upright gingerly, wiping the blood off his face. “I’m alright,” he says, and she’s confused for a moment before she looks up and sees that there’s a loose circle of worried bystanders.

“Do you need help, sir?” asks a young man, about Pyro’s age.

“No,” Erik says, waving him off. “This is personal business. Please, we don’t want any trouble.”

The humans don’t seem convinced, but there’s not much they can do if Erik doesn’t want their help, and so they disperse slowly, some of them shooting Raven nasty looks.

Erik grabs the edge of the bench and pulls himself up to sit on it. “I don’t suppose an apology would do much good at this point,” he says. His tone has the same ironic twist to it as always, but his voice sounds tired. Old. 

“You’re right,” she snaps. 

He looks down at the table, avoiding her gaze. “Nevertheless, I’m sorry.”

She almost hits him again. “Too little, too late, Erik!”

“I know.” 

“I should kill you, after what you did to me. We both know I could do it.”

This provokes a small, bitter laugh from him. “I almost wish you would. It would be a mercy.” He gestures to himself. “What am I now? A broken old man who thought he was a god.”

“You don’t deserve mercy,” Raven says, harshly. “And you sure as hell don’t deserve self-pity.”

“Then what now?” He finally looks up and meets her gaze. “Leave me alone, as I left you?”

“I should.”

They sit in silence there for awhile, watching the sun set. The park slowly empties, until they are alone, sitting under the stars.

“Where will you go?” Erik asks, eventually.

“I don’t know. I don’t have any living family, and the only ID I have is a prison record.”

“More than I have,” Erik says, with that little twist of his lips that she used to find so attractive. Now, she wonders if he’s been laughing at her all this time.

“You know I’m not going to kill you, don’t you.” It isn’t a question.

“Yes,” Erik answers, evenly.

“Then tell me one thing. Was it all a lie? Were you just using me all this time?”

There’s a long pause, as if Erik’s gathering his thoughts. “You are the only person I ever really trusted,” he says. “I loved Charles - as much as I do you - but we both knew we could never be on the same side.”

There’s a tacit admission in there, that he loves her. He’s never said as much before, even when she believed he did. “You dropped me like a discarded toy the moment I wasn’t useful to you.”

Erik goes silent again. “I was afraid,” he says after a moment. “I saw how you had become - diminished - and it terrified me that I might face the same fate. Now we are . . . nothing.”

Raven feels fury bubble up inside her, and her hands curl into fists under the table. “All through my life, people have cared more about what I looked like than who I was. I thought you were different. I let myself believe that you thought I was more than my powers. Guess I should have known better. It always was about power with you.”

“Power is safety,” Erik says quietly. “Without it, we become victims.”

“Do you really think everything we did was because of our powers?” Raven raises an eyebrow. “I never took you for an idiot, Erik.”

“Then tell me, Raven. Without my powers, what am I?”

Raven shook her head. “I can’t tell you who you are, Erik, and if I could I wouldn’t want to. I wasted thirty years of my life on you. Now it’s time for me to me to see what I can salvage of my own life.”

“I never meant to hurt you.”

Raven laughs, bitterly. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? You of all people should know that good intentions aren’t enough.”

“I do.” He drew his coat around himself against the cold night air. “Is it too late for me, Raven? Is there any way to make amends for what I’ve done?”

Raven considers that. “Charles would have said yes.”

“Charles is dead.”

“Because of you. You have to live with that, Erik, one way or another.” She stands up, as if to go, and then hesitates, feeling a twinge of pity for Erik’s hopelessness. She turns back to him. “For what it’s worth, Erik, I always thought you were better than this. Maybe, at one point, that was true. If you can still remember who you were before you sacrificed everything to our cause - maybe you’ll prove Charles right.”

“He would have liked that, I think.”

“He would. I’m sorry he never lived to see it.” She turns around. “Goodbye, Erik. And good luck.”

And then she walks out of the park and disappears into the darkness.


End file.
